Matt Campbell

New cars shouldn’t have problems. Well, that’s what most owners expect.

But throughout 2013 Drive kept track of all the problems of the nearly 400 new cars that made their way through our garages; most of which were with us for seven days at a time. Other loans were longer, some were shorter.

Over the course of the year, 39 out of a total of 389 vehicles – one in 10 - exhibited some form of fault.

The vast majority of problems were minor issues such as sound systems with Bluetooth audio streaming that refused to play ball. But there were some more worrying problems, including suspension clunks, engines coughing and spluttering, and one car had a speedometer that was significantly understating how fast the vehicle was going.

Some brands exhibited more problems than others. We drove 17 BMWs, for example, and only one had a fault, while of the 12 Jeeps we tested, three had problems of some form or another. We drove 29 Holdens and had four faults, while of the 19 Fords we drove, two had problems.

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Some brands didn’t show up any problems during our time testing their cars, including the 17 different Mitsubishi models we tested, and the 11 Hyundais that came through the garage.

The prevalence of such faults was an eye-opener for the team, and gave us an indication as to how frustrating some buyers must find it when they fork out tens - or hundreds - of thousands of dollars on a brand new car, only for it to end up giving them headaches.

Below is our month-by-month account of the car faults we experienced in 2013. Let us know in the comments section below if you’ve bought a new car, only to have it let you down in one way or another.

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January

Volvo XC70: This car had a headlight fault. A warning came up in central screen indicating a problem, and it seemed to be an issue with the active headlight system or auto high beams because the lights themselves were working.

Suzuki Kizashi: The car we tested, fitted with a push-button start system and smart key entry, took about 10 seconds to start. We held the starter button down for some time, tried again, but on the third attempt it finally kicked over. This was a one-off problem during our time with the car.

Holden Colorado7: Seven seats, yes, but this ute-based off-roader also came with a major clunking noise. Further investigation showed the bracket for the stabiliser bar was loose.

BMW M6 Cabriolet: With a price tag of more than $300,000, you should expect perfection. But this drop-top M6’s bi-xenon headlight washers constantly stayed open - the body-coloured flaps that are supposed to raise and lower to allow the glass to be cleaned wouldn’t click shut. Also, the rear passenger-side window didn’t wind all the way up unless you held your finger on the button, and even then it took some learning to figure out.

February

Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8: Bluetooth streaming only worked intermittently. The audio experienced was similar to listening to a scratched record, with the system speeding up and garbling songs. It also had a driveline vibration when loaded at speeds of 90km/h or higher, and the transmission occasionally slammed into gear.

Fiat 500C Abarth Essesse Dualogic: “Transmission fault” warning appeared on dash and was reset when the car was restarted. This car also had a tendency to start up with different internal ventilation fan levels (low on several occasions, high once or twice) and the Sport mode would sometimes be on as soon as you started it, while at other times it wasn’t.

Holden Barina CDX: A few issues with this one. It had an intermittent misfire at idle, and threw up a “service rear view system” message on the dash when reverse was engaged. The media screen also froze and simply showed the Holden logo. Not ideal when the car was supposed to showcase Holden’s then-new MyLink media system.

Volkswagen Amarok: Volkswagen's ute exhibited a thump in the driveline when stopping.

Toyota Camry: The Camry had a noticeable creaking/rattle from lower dash and centre console.

Audi RS4: Our test car had a broken seat recliner when we picked up the vehicle.

March

Subaru Outback diesel CVT: The car exhibited a noisy clunk in the front right suspension, and its automatic Bluetooth connection - which should pick up when you get back in the car and hook up to your phone – often didn’t work.

April

Land Rover Discovery 4 SDV6 HSE: Had a bunch of warning lights coming on, took to dealer and a faulty brake switch was replaced.

Opel OPC Corsa: The smallest Opel performance car had a tyre or wheel bearing noise from rear, and bad creaking noises from left front door. This car also had some mechanical faults, with rough starts and wavering idle speeds.

Holden Cruze: All automatic models tested exhibited some form of mild driveline vibration.

Ford Kuga: A quirky stereo problem - the radio station changed if you put the car in accessories mode, then started it a few seconds later. One tester was listening to Triple J, switched the car off and on again, only to be blasted by a terrible pop track on Nova.

June

Honda Accord: Stereo problems again - this time, the radio station kept skipping like it was a scratched CD.

Porsche 911 Carerra 4S: There was a noticeable suspension knock at low speeds, with a thump from the front-end.

Mazda6: Fitted with sat-nav as standard, but that’s not much use when all that comes up on the infotainment screen is an “SD card failure” warning, which meant the maps didn’t work.

Volkswagen Golf: The new Golf had a stereo issue, too, when one tester’s iPod and iPhone were not detected when connected.

Lotus Exige S: The British sports car had stereo issues of an entirely different kind - the control knobs fell off under brisk accelleration. The car’s air-conditioning knobs featured the same problems.

Kia Rondo: Rounding out a bad month for music while motoring, this seven-seater had fuzzy-sounding front speakers.

July

Nissan Pulsar: Coughing and spluttering at idle. This could have been connected to the recall that was logged not long after the car’s launch over stalling engines.

Lexus IS: This could become annoying if you owned the car: the sat-nav’s school zone warning system would tell the driver to make sure they drove at 40km/h - at 9 o’clock at night.

August

Kia Sportage: The Series II Sportage impressed apart from the faulty USB/iPod connection, which would not work.

Subaru Exiga: The Japanese brand’s seven-seater arrived with some back-end problems. Its reversing camera was hanging loose, and its numberplate light was broken.

September

Fiat Punto Lounge: Engine faults for this Italian-made city car saw it running very rough on mid-throttle. The engine light flashed up and exclamation mark light came on and stayed on. On another occasion it almost stalled when the stop-start system refired the engine. We returned this car to the dealer on the last day of our loan, and it was still idling rough, misfiring and occasionally surging.

Ford Fiesta ST: Ford's hot hatch had no iPod playback via USB.

Jaguar XFR-S: This manic luxury sedan featured a noisy thump inside the door.

Renault Megane GT 220: Renault's sporty wagon had stop-start hesitations, with a stop-start system that would get confused in heavy traffic and not restart when clutch was depressed, leading to the driver having to go through the ignition sequence to re-start the car. This happened several times - very frustrating.

Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland: An automatic high-beam feature on our test car played havoc with traffic. The car repeatedly activated its high-beam lamps in the face of oncoming traffic.

October

Holden Trax: The base model CD Trax, fitted with a petrol engine and manual transmission, had an engine misfire. A loss of power and a dashboard engine warning light came on twice, but when we took it to the dealer they couldn’t find a fault.

Toyota 86: A Drive Car of the Year test vehicle had a knock in the steering which worsened over our testing period.

November

Jeep Grand Cherokee: The Jeep had a partial instrument cluster blackout. This was an issue known to brand, and a recall was issued to fix it.

Tata Xenon: This Indian-made ute had some sort of loose item moving around in the sill of the car - you would brake suddenly and hear whatever it was going “ting-ting-ting” towards the front of the ute. We tested the 2WD and 4WD models, and one had a serious speedometer fault - it was reading 100km/h when in actual fact the car was travelling almost 110km/h, as verified by a number of satellite-based systems. It turns out the factory had installed the wrong speedometer on our car.

December

Peugeot 2008 Allure: The little SUV was fitted with a rear-view mirror that has an integrated reversing camera display, but it only worked occasionally (roughly a third of the time). Also, when you shifted out of reverse, there was a blank blue screen display for several seconds covering about one-third of the mirror.

Nissan Altima: Occasional shudder through the body during low speed take off. This happened at about 20 per cent throttle, and felt like it was an issue with the CVT auto transmission.